What price species conservation?

Did you hear the Today programme yesterday or see Fiona Harvey's piece on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 100 species list in the Guardian yesterday? The Guardian article raised the question of whether humans care only for species from which they can extract benefit, and dismiss the rest as 'worthless'. If you missed it, you can read it here.  

To be honest I think this is a false debate and one that is in danger of distracting conservationists from the rather important task of tackling drivers of decline.

It is a bit like the rather odd question about the value of each Olympic/Paralympic gold medal .  Sure, you can work out how much Lottery money went in to each sport and how many gold medals were won, but does that give a true indication of what those medals were worth?

So, at risk of further distraction, let's try and unpick the argument by looking at some of the species on the list.

The angel shark is still found in vanishingly small numbers off the UK coastline. It doesn’t look much like a shark – its flattened body and broad fins make it look more like a member of the ray family. In fact for whoever honoured it with such a beautiful name those pectoral fins clearly brought to mind the wings of a celestial being.  Also on the list was the spoon billed sandpiper – a bird so endangered that the RSPB, Birds Russia, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and others were forced to embark on an emergency mission to a remote part of Russia to transport individuals back for a last ditch captive breeding programme. 

Spoon billed sandpiper, photo credit: Peter Ericsson

Other evocatively monickered species in the line-up include the leaf scaled seasnake, the Galapagos damsel fish, the Hula painted frog and the peacock parachute spider. Each one has its own incredible individual story of evolution, adaptation and survival against odds, but each with its own tragic reasons for decline: overfishing, habitat destruction, hunting etc. 

The article appeared to argue that the problem for many of these plants and animals is that as beautiful and fascinating as they are, they don’t give us anything back. Nothing they do provides us with a tangible financial benefit seems to be the verdict.   Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation at the Zoological Society of London, was quoted as saying that the conservation movement is “increasingly leaning towards a 'what can nature do for us?' approach, where species and wild habitats are valued and prioritised according to these services they provided for people”. 

But this really does completely misunderstand a long-standing debate which is now referred to valuing ‘ecosystems services’.   We, and others may have a strong belief in ethical or other imperatives for conserving nature but these arguments have never been that helpful in challenging the drivers of loss.  I have always felt we need to win the battle for both hearts and minds.  We need to demonstrate that the public cares and that there are economic reasons why investment in nature makes sense. 

There has been a lot written over the years about the motivations of conservation action.  And it is fair to say that a number of campaigns (which doubtless many of you have been a part) have been built on emotions: the "don't build it here or kill that species - it's just plain wrong"  approach has worked without needing to rely on traditional economic arguments to win support.

But, when it comes to addressing the drivers of loss,  we have for many years, emphasised the utilitarian importance of saving nature.  For us, ecosystmem services (those things that nature gives us) are about life supporting services, like food, carbon,water and life enhancing ones.  The value we and others place on the sheer existence of species is as much an economic value as the value of carbon stored in peat.  So long as there are people who place a value on the angel shark (for whatever reason) it will diminish our wellbeing if it is lost.
 
There are those that claim that using utilitarian arguments somehow undermine moral arguments for conservation.  I think this is twaddle for which there is no evidence whatsoever.  Recognising the value of peatlands for storing carbon and regulating the climate has nothing whatsoever to do with my conviction that humans should not act so as to endanger the existence of other species on the planet.  Most conservationists, in my experience, get this and will carry on using all the arguments at their disposal to save species from extinction.

What do you think?

Without wishing to cause any further distraction from the core business of nature conservation and tackling the drivers for species loss, it would be great to hear your views.